The church includes all ages. And how you “feel and look” at any age! Local radio hosts were talking this week and told the joke about the 90 year old who said, “I feel like a new born baby. I have no hair, I have no teeth, and I just peed in my pants.”

Well, having considered the fellow’s thoughts…..all I can say is “that’s life!”

The church is, I believe, the current and ongoing social institution to bring all ages, tribes, and nations together with common interests and purposes regarding living life to the fullest “at all ages.” In the Acts passage, Lydia is a successful businesswoman who receives the Good News from Paul, is baptized AND her household. A household likely had ALL ages and perhaps in a wealthy persons home, servants and their children as well, people not kinfolk! Then Lydia invites Paul and Silas to stay in her home. Just like they were family! Which, in the sense of Gods family, they are all part of now! We can’t know a whole lot about the ages of the baptized nor their faithfulness over the years but we do know they all were included and off to a good start!

The church is a family with the expected age range and, well…..amazing diversity in personalities, socio-economic realities, local customs, and languages. Time and patience and prayer are required for the long run!

From the new born baby to the Ninety Year Old……Baptized and always in need of hospitality …from each other and from God!

Come celebrate Church this Sunday! You are included!

Pastor Barry

We have no lack of earthly images for the heavenly God Almighty, the One who is wholly (Holy) different from the Creation and the creatures!

It should be no other way unless you want a philosophical, logical, Transcendent only God. Most of can’t think that hard nor should we! Our God meets us where we are with words and descriptions we are familiar with. Thus, we get Good Shepherds, Sacrificial Lambs, Lions of Judah, a Mother Hen wanting to gather her chicks, and finally a duel between The Beast and a Rider on a White Horse! So much better and vital than an Unmoved Mover or Wholly Other!

Which gets us to being able to also sing! Praising God with voice and instrument. We need words that we, on earth, can relate to, not words of the philosophers and thinkers only. As we Wesleyans know, we have “a sung faith!”

This Sunday we will work with images not seen very often in our America today. Shepherds and their flocks. Would an image of the cowboy with the herd help us? That too is almost gone as is the late, great TV Western. So….we work with what we are given somewhere between the ancient text and what you see and hear in the 21st century.

It should make worship one of the best parts of your week! Pray that it be so!

Pastor Barry

We have no lack of earthly images for the heavenly God Almighty, the One who is wholly (Holy) different from the Creation and the creatures!

It should be no other way unless you want a philosophical, logical, Transcendent only God. Most of can’t think that hard nor should we! Our God meets us where we are with words and descriptions we are familiar with. Thus, we get Good Shepherds, Sacrificial Lambs, Lions of Judah, a Mother Hen wanting to gather her chicks, and finally a duel between The Beast and a Rider on a White Horse! So much better and vital than an Unmoved Mover or Wholly Other!

Which gets us to being able to also sing! Praising God with voice and instrument. We need words that we, on earth, can relate to, not words of the philosophers and thinkers only. As we Wesleyans know, we have “a sung faith!”

This Sunday we will work with images not seen very often in our America today. Shepherds and their flocks. Would an image of the cowboy with the herd help us? That too is almost gone as is the late, great TV Western. So….we work with what we are given somewhere between the ancient text and what you see and hear in the 21st century.

It should make worship one of the best parts of your week! Pray that it be so!

Pastor Barry

Some of us grew up in an age of only three TV networks: ABC, CBS, NBC. Or channels if you wish. There was also the “educational” channel. Channel 8 in my Virginia location.

Now…who can realistically count the “channels” on cable or dish? The remote is indispensable to many now!

When speaking of nets, however, there were and are some that remain the same for generations. There are hairnets, nets for games, e.g. Badminton, and, of course, fishing nets!

This Sunday we will see how “networks and nets” caught people up in the movement of God’s Kingdom and the new Reality of Resurrection! And everyone was at the mercy and initiative of God! God was setting up both networks and nets for the Beloved!

Let’s “tune in” to the right channel and “get caught up” in the right nets given to us by a gracious Creator who communicates with us and catches us for the sake of Life, the abundant Life!

Peace and Blessings until we meet again!

Pastor Barry

When people talk about March Madness nowadays, are they talking NCAA basketball or presidential candidates!? And sadly, those two will be more likely table conversation topics rather than Word and deed in the Christian journey for many; sports most likely since “religion and politics” are often avoided in public group conversations!

But, the people of God will still find ways to bear witness to our God, our Risen Savior. We will gather to worship, take the bread and cup, hear the Word proclaimed and go the rest of the week seeking to help and serve others. By the power of God we will speak and do our faith. By our own sinful limitations we will fail also!

But those experiences, good and not so good, are still under the loving embrace of our God whose costly grace brings forth “spiritual fruit” as well as “covers a multitude of sins!” So, the bottom line is we can rejoice and be glad: God is God and we are not!

That gets us back to March Madness, or better the wild and powerful story of Jesus’ Life, Death, and Resurrection; the madness of those who opposed the ministry of His love, mercy, and grace; the resistance and rebellion that ALL people go through in spite of the Good News! Madness indeed!

What I see happening,tho, in April is not so much “madness” but rather April Gladness! Our scripture this Sunday is exuberant with gladness! Something happened and now we see! We see and hear a more important conversation about life that sports and politics merely “hint at.” Yes, sports and politics have their place but only in light of the bigger picture, the much bigger Kingdom of God at work in the world now and someday to be complete!

This is something to take with us as comfort and strength as we go about being “April Ambassadors” for the Risen Lord! So, in a few days we can leave behind SOME of the March Madness e.g. NCAA basketball, move on with our American democracy, and still attend to being Ambassadors for Christ in April….and, of course, year round!!

April blessings all!

Pastor Barry